


apocalypse lullaby

by deathsweetqueen



Series: Tony Stark Bingo 2019: Round 2 [16]
Category: Black Panther (2018), Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Erik Killmonger Lives, Erik has Issues, Explicit Sexual Content, First Meetings, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-27
Updated: 2019-07-27
Packaged: 2020-07-21 08:50:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19999189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathsweetqueen/pseuds/deathsweetqueen
Summary: Tony meets Erik at a MIT bar in 2004, after the roaring success of an alumni speech to the engineering department and the offer of scholarships to members who meet means-tests by the Maria Stark Foundation.He’s sitting in a booth, when a handsome man, tall and lithe, slips into the seat on the other side, dreads curling over his face like a fringe, dark eyes flashing.“Hey,” he says, smoothly.“Hi,” Tony says, pleasantly, leaning back in his chair.It’s not his first time, being approached like this in a bar.The man takes a long drag of his beer, his throat flexing. “You’re Tony Stark.”Tony’s mouth twists. “If I have to be, sure,” he says, casually.Written for the Tony Stark Bingo 2019, "on opposing sides" square (K3), and the Marvel Rare Pair Bingo 2019, "hurt/comfort" square





	apocalypse lullaby

Tony meets Erik at a MIT bar in 2004, after the roaring success of an alumni speech to the engineering department and the offer of scholarships to members who meet means-tests by the Maria Stark Foundation.

He’s sitting in a booth, when a handsome man, tall and lithe, slips into the seat on the other side, dreads curling over his face like a fringe, dark eyes flashing.

“Hey,” he says, smoothly.

“Hi,” Tony says, pleasantly, leaning back in his chair.

It’s not his first time, being approached like this in a bar.

The man takes a long drag of his beer, his throat flexing. “You’re Tony Stark.”

Tony’s mouth twists. “If I have to be, sure,” he says, casually.

“The whole campus has been talkin’ about nothing else but you,” the stranger offers. “You must feel real good about yourself.”

Tony’s eyes gleam. “Something like that.”

“It must be nice,” the stranger sighs. “Bein’ able to treat us like charity; win yourself some nice street cred for deignin’ to help the little guy.”

“You’re pretty combative,” Tony points out.

“Yeah, and you’re a rich bitch, who thinks he’s doing us a favour by throwin’ your money around,” the stranger retorts.

Tony clenches his hands around the edge of the table, the rage burning in him hot and fast. He half-lunges across the table.

“My father didn’t go to college. He built his company from scratch. He was the son of a fruit seller and a woman who sewed shirtwaists for a factory. He came on a boat when he was six from Germany; they were Polish Jews running away from being beaten in the streets. My mother was the first person in her family to go to college. She was from Argentina. She worked as a waitress and got fondled by cunts trying to put herself through college. I grew up in money, sure, but maybe, just maybe, I throw money around because I don’t want people to end up like my parents when I can try and make things better.”

To his credit, he doesn’t throw his drink in the stranger’s face on his way out.

* * *

The stranger waggles a chai latte in front of his face.

“Peace offerin’,” he says.

Tony eyes it, suspiciously. “I feel like I have to raise how you know about the fact that I drink a chai latte before I take this.”

“No offence, but you ain’t as sneaky as you think you are,” the stranger points out.

Tony snatches it out of his hands. “If this is poisoned, I will have you killed,” he declares before sipping at it. “Oh, this really hits the spot, and I don’t even know your name.”

“Erik, it’s Erik,” Erik answers.

Tony pinches the bridge of his nose. “And you study engineering here,” he guesses.

“I do. Navy ROTC.”

Tony hums. “My best friend’s Air Force.”

Erik grins, all teeth, and it makes Tony’s stomach lurch with butterflies. “I know.”

Tony points at him. “That’s fucking creepy. Are you stalking me?”

“Let me take you out to dinner, and you can decide for yourself,” Erik says, confidently.

Tony lifts an eyebrow. “Did you really think that would work?”

Erik shrugs. “It was worth a shot. Come on, Stark, you know you want to,” he cajoles.

“You literally found me at a bar to attack me over some perceived slight by my so-called capitalist agenda. Now, you stalked me around campus to buy me a chai latte, which you still haven’t explained to me how you know I drink. Why would I go to dinner with you, exactly?”

Erik blinks, as if he hadn’t even considered the question. “You’re hot, I’m hot. You’re smart, I’m smart. Seems pretty simple, like a match made in heaven.”

Tony finds himself smiling despite everything. “You’re persistent,” he comments.

Erik smiles. His teeth flash white against his skin, and it makes something twist in Tony’s stomach.

“It’s good you’re seein’ it my way. So, what d’you say?”

“Dinner,” Tony says, sternly. “I’m not promising more.”

“I can deal with that.”

* * *

That night, he has dinner with Erik Stevens.

He’s funny and charming and witty and he might be one of the most beautiful men that Tony has had the opportunity of dragging his eyes over.

And frankly, Tony hasn’t laughed like this, not so bright and proud, since a policeman came to his doorstep on December 17 1991 to tell him that his parents were dead, that his father had gotten drunk and wrapped a car around a tree with his poor, dead mother in the passenger seat.

He gets a little tipsy, he admits, and he might even throw himself at Erik a little when he brings him back to his hotel room.

Erik isn’t half the rogue he thought he would be, though, and kisses him like he’s starving, his big hands everywhere on Tony’s body as he pins him up against the door. But he pulls away, leaving Tony flushed and panting and practically swaying towards him, bereft of the warmth.

Erik’s dark gaze drags down the length of Tony’s body, and he pinches the bridge of his nose.

“Fuck, wanted t’do this properly,” he says, gruffly.

Tony bites his lip. “Do what properly?” he asks, his voice coming out breathless (he hates himself for that, the idea that one kiss, one hot, fucking amazing kiss from an equally hot man, could do this to him, peel him right to the root, like a butterfly tacked to a display case).

Erik’s hand falls to his face, and he brushes a thumb over the sharp jut of his cheekbone.

“I’m not gonna fuck you just yet, pretty boy,” he rasps, swaying towards him, long, slender frame crowding him against the wall, his handsome, hard-cut face all Tony can see.

Tony lets a breath heave against his lungs. “Why not?” he demands, offended.

Erik’s hand falls to his hip. “Because I’m gonna take my time with you,” he tells him, half-amused. “And when I’m done with you, all you’re gonna want is my dick inside you.” 

Tony swallows, thickly. “Bold words, Stevens. Put up or shut up.”

Erik chuckles.

The night ends with Tony’s tongue in his mouth and his arms around his neck. He doesn’t come that night, much to his frustration, but the wait is sweeter, he thinks.

* * *

A month later, they fuck.

Tony left after a week, needing to return to Malibu since Stark Industries continues to live and breathe, but he comes back often to visit Erik, because there are reasons why he has his own jet and this seems like the most beneficial use he can get out of it.

They get dinner at that diner just off campus, and Tony’s fucking thankful for the opportunity to eat a cheeseburger, full of meat and cheese and guaranteed to give him a shitload of cholesterol. They even have a couple of chocolate malted milkshake and drink from those giant bendy straws. So, when Erik drops him off at his hotel room for the night, it’s very easy for him to fist a hand in Erik’s shirt and yank him inside the room, shutting the door on him.

“On the bed,” he orders.

Erik lifts an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“Yeah, on the bed.”

Erik gives him his trademark half-smile, more of a smirk than anything else. Tony easily imagines he was a vicious, proud little boy.

“You want to dominate me, baby?”

“Do you have any fucking idea how many batteries I’ve used up dealing with all the inappropriate erections you give me?” Tony demands, folding his arms over his chest. “Store-bought vibrators aren’t made for a good sex life. I’ve had to seriously consider diversifying Stark Industries’ product line.”

“Into sex toys?” Erik waggles his eyebrows. “Make love, not war. I like it.”

“No, you don’t,” Tony says, fond and rueful. “Now, get on the bad. I’m not gonna ask another time.”

Erik shrugs and backs towards his giant king bed, in the centre of the suite.

“Wait,” Tony calls out, and Erik stops straight in his tracks. “Take off your clothes first.”

Erik smiles like a naked sword and his cotton shirt hits the ground without much fanfare, as he kicks it away. His hands go to his jeans, unbuttoning and then pulling down the zipper slowly, as if aware of just how quickly Tony’s mouth dries.

He isn’t wearing any underwear, when he rolls them down to his ankles and steps out of them. Tony lets out a breath, when Erik’s cock slaps against his belly, leaving a glistening streak of pre-come against his belly. His lean fingers curl around his cock and corkscrews upwards.

“Look at you, pretty boy,” Erik growls. “You want it so bad, don’t you?”

Something hot curls in Tony’s belly. “I do.”

Erik pumps his cock. “Come over here, baby.”

Tony pads over, skinning out of his clothes, until he’s naked, revealing lean muscle and gleaming skin, the colour of dark olive. Erik’s eyes trail over him, greedy-hot, and Tony bites down on his lip.

“Well?” Tony asks, hand sliding over the slope of his hip. “I told you, get on the bed.”

Erik raises his hands in the air and saunters back, tossing himself on the bed, back first, and throwing the sheets and pillows up into the air. He reaches between his legs and fists his cock.

“You comin’ over here or what?” he asks, belligerently.

“I am. I’m just enjoying the view,” Tony says, fluttering his eyelashes.

“Oh, yeah, what else would you enjoy?” Erik asks, smugly.

Tony sighs and pads over to the bed, crawling on top of the sheets and perching in Erik’s lap, hands splaying out over Erik’s broad shoulders.

“I like your cock,” he says.

Erik waggles his eyebrows. “Oh?”

“Yeah, I want it inside me.” Tony shrugs. “You gonna give me what I want, Stevens, or do I have to take it for myself?”

Something looms behind Erik’s eyes, sharp as a knife, and Tony suddenly finds himself on his back, with Erik surging over him, settling between his thighs, cock pressing against his belly.

“You don’t take shit from me. I choose to give it to you,” he says, half-vicious, half-fond.

That’s Erik at his pith, half-vicious, half-fond. He loves and hates the world in equal measure. Tony just worries, he worries that one day, Erik’s resentment, resentment that Tony doesn’t quite understand, is going to fester like an unclean wound and kill him one day.

Tony likes him too much to watch him die so easily.

Tony stretches, so Erik can drag his eyes over the expanse of olive skin exposed to him.

“What are you going to give me?” he asks, breathlessly.

Erik rolls his hips. “What d’you think?”

Tony just offers him a mercurial smile. Erik slides his fingers between Tony’s legs, finds him stretched, his rim fluttering open.

“Did you, uh, did you prepare for this?” he asks, curiously, a smile taking form on his face.

Tony shrugs. “I guess I really wanted it. So, fucking, is that going to happen any time soon?”

“Why, you gaggin’ for it?” Erik taunts.

“No, but I might be tempted to kick you out of bed and grab my vibrator if this is going to be a deal breaker.”

“You don’t need no vibrator, pretty boy,” Erik leans down to mouth at his throat. “You got me instead.”

Tony takes a deep breath when the blunt head of Erik’s cock pushes up against him, parting him like a ripe peach. The stretch burns a little, even with the lube, but he leans into it instead, until he’s all full and taut, his eyes black beneath his lashes. He eases a hand over Erik’s side, the flex of muscle, as he withdraws.

“I want you screamin’,” Erik grunts.

His hips stutter and snap forward, dragging a shout from Tony, breathy and high, as he clutches the sheets below. His cock rubs up against his prostate, and Tony leaves half-moon, bloody marks in Erik’s shoulder.

“There we go,” Erik says, rough and self-satisfied.

“Keep fucking me,” Tony grits out.

“I thought that was what I was doin’,” Erik taunts.

“Well, do more!” Tony snaps.

Erik pounds into him like he’s on a mission, fucking him onto his cock, until his vision, his awareness narrows down to just this, sharp and singular, being skewered on Erik’s cock.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Tony gasps, tightening up around him.

Erik’s hand clenches around Tony’s sharp hipbone, and with one, final, brutal thrust, he comes, ugly and visceral, pulsing inside him. He catches Tony’s prostate as he withdraws, and Tony comes as well, like a seventy-car pileup, arching. The come shines across his belly, between his thighs, and he looks a mess, his swollen rim fluttering open and leaking come, when Erik rolls onto his back.

“You’re a good fuck, Stevens,” Tony sighs.

Erik laughs; it’s bright and proud and makes his heart swell. “Thanks for the commendation,” he teases.

Tony rests his head on Erik’s shoulder, tracing the smattering of hair around his navel. His thumb finds the ink on Erik’s shoulder.

“Nia, is that your mother’s name?”

Erik tenses, fleetingly, before he sighs. “Yeah, it was. She, uh, she died when I was a kid.”

“I’m sorry.” Tony nudges his nose against Erik’s shoulder. “And your dad?”

“He was murdered,” Erik says, coldly, eyes clouded with black, thundering rage. “by his brother.”

Tony startles. “What?”

Erik turns onto his side, face clearing. “Why all the questions, huh?” he asks, fingers smoothing back Tony’s sweat-damp hair.

Tony shrugs. “You know everything about me, mostly because the paparazzi splash my photo across the fucking tabloids whenever I go and buy fucking fabric softener. You know about my parents; everyone knows about my parents. But I don’t know anything about you.” He braves a smile, a shy, insecure little thing. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were just stringing me along, Stevens.”

Erik’s brow knits and his thumb smooths over Tony’s high cheekbone. “I don’t have time to string people along,” he says, solemnly.

It makes his stomach twist, the way he says it; it’s undefinable, the impossible, dangerous look he can see in his eyes. There’s something there, always there, in Erik’s eyes, that makes him think he’s lingering on the edge, waiting, hungry and haunted.

Tony’s scared to touch it, scared that it, _he_ , might fall away if he does.

Tony takes a deep breath and flashes him the edge of his smile. “Do you have time for me?”

“I have all the time in the world for you, pretty boy,” Erik says, slyly, kissing him deep and slow until Tony’s toes start curling.

* * *

They get married, around four years into their relationship.

Erik is a fully-fledged Navy SEAL now, and he and Rhodey even have stupid, senseless arguments about which branch of the United States military is better (Tony sells to all of them, so he doesn’t have a dog in this fight).

So, one day, after they get roaringly drunk and pass out in one of Tony’s hotel rooms, after Erik has fucked him stupid and left him boneless and brainless, Erik turns to him and says, “We should get married.”

For the first time, in many years, Tony is speechless.

Erik snaps his fingers in front of face. “You doing okay, baby?” he asks, cockily, a smile curving on the edge of his mouth.

Tony loves his smile.

So, they get married.

* * *

It happens in Malibu, because it works better that way. They go to Town Hall, and they stand in front of some white-bearded guy and Rhodey and Pepper and Happy and Linda are the only ones in attendance (he’d wanted Sharon and Aunt Peggy there, but Sharon was at super-secret spy training and unable to get away and Aunt Peggy, well, she has her good days and her bad days and he doesn’t want to make any day for her a bad day).

It’s okay, though, because Tony and Erik both know family doesn’t end with blood; family is the people you want beside you on a day like this, and they have all they want right here.

Later on, Tony takes Erik to Aunt Peggy, and she calls him handsome and says, “you’ll make beautiful babies, together, ducky.”

He replies, “You do realise that we’re both men, right, Aunt Pegs?”

Aunt Peggy just rolls her eyes. “And here I thought you were a genius.”

Erik just grins the whole way through, while he’s absolutely mortified.

* * *

“Are you insane?” Tony asks, coldly.

Erik leans back on the couch, pops the tab on his beer. “I’m not havin’ this conversation with you,” he says, casually.

“I’m your goddamn husband; who else are you gonna have this conversation with?” Tony demands.

“How about we just don’t have this conversation period?” Erik suggests.

“You could die, and you don’t want to have this conversation?”

“I could die whenever, babe. I could die crossing the street tomorrow when I grab a bottle of milk. I could die in the shower. I could die eating dinner.” Erik’s face goes harsh. “I could’ve died half a hundred times when I was out there, defendin’ this country. Did you think about that? Did you care? Why does it matter now?”

Tony’s fists clench and unclench around air. “You think I didn’t think about that? You think I didn’t _care_?” he asks, his fury crackling a forest fire. “Do you have any idea what the fuck it’s like to sit here and wait and wonder if you’ll die and I’ll even find out, if I’m worth the letter or the phone call? Now, it just looks like you’re searching for it, some new, fantastical way to die.”

“And that bothers you, does it?”

“Why wouldn’t it?” Tony asks, desperately.

They aren’t the couple that says _I love you_ every waking moment of every day. Tony might’ve said it once or twice at most, during sex or as he rushes out the door for a meeting, and he knows Erik muttered it against his hair when he thought Tony was sleeping.

But Tony’s only half a heart without him, and he knows Erik feels the same way.

“I just… I don’t want you to die out there,” he says, thin and taut.

Erik gives him a look like steel. “Yeah, well, not everything’s about you.”

“I never said it was!” Tony snaps.

“Yeah, but you’re sure soundin’ like it now. This isn’t about you, Tony. This is about what I want to do, what I want from my life, what I have to do, and I’m doin’ it.”

“And so, I get no say. I just have to wait here until you come home, either safe or sound or in a body bag?” Tony demands.

“Yeah, pretty much,” Erik says, hard as stone.

Tony gapes at him in disbelief. “That’s not what a marriage is.”

Erik snorts. “Cause you’re an expert all of a sudden. ‘Cause Howard Stark was such a fuckin’ bastion of what a husband should be; is that why your mum decided pills and wine were better than playin’ happy families with you?”

Tony doesn’t flinch at how easy the cruel words come to Erik. “I’m more of an expert than you are,” he retorts. “How old were you when your mum died, again?”

Erik’s face floods with such bitter, seething hatred that Tony almost takes a step back (that look, it reminds him so much of Howard, all that venom, that feverish shade of rage; he just never thought Erik would ever look at him like that, but maybe that was always supposed to be his fate, maybe he’d never really escape Howard, even if he’s been dead in the ground for years now). 

“Fuck you, Tony,” Erik spits, his face contorted. “What would _you_ know? What would _you_ understand? You think ‘cause you make guns and bombs you fuckin’ know what it’s like out there, what any of us have to do? You’re just some spoilt little rich bitch; the most painful thing you’ve ever had t’do is choose which fuckin’ Tom Ford you’d wear to the next fucking gala where you could sip champagne with all the other rich cunts and moan about how much money you’ve got; what, daddy didn’t love you enough, he didn’t spend enough time with you, he was mean, and you think that makes you an authority on why life is _hard_?”

“Because you’re the only person, anywhere, everywhere, who’s had a shit life? You’re the one and only fucking authority on it, right, you sanctimonious prick?”

All that is hard and ugly in Erik’s face stares back at him. “Yeah, ‘cause you know somethin’ about going hungry, being cold, having t’fight for your life, havin’ t’kill, losin’ everythin’, holdin’ your dad in your arms as he dies, watchin’ your mum fade away behind bars because of rich bastards like you. You know what that’s like, right? Tell me honest, Tony, what in your goddamn perfect life could possibly compare, huh?”

_I’m not going to spill my guts, I’m not going to talk about how Howard never looked at me like I wasn’t unworthy, like I wasn’t wanting in some way. I’m not going to talk about all those times he hit me because I was better than him and he always knew I was better than him and I would always be better than him and he hated it, he hated me. Why did he hate me? I’m not going to tell him about my mum, seeing that car crash, dressing her for her funeral and knowing that she’d never open her eyes, never smile at me again, never call me her little patito again._

He takes a deep breath, dragging it through his teeth.

_I’m not going to talk about how it felt to watch Ana die in that bed and not be able to do anything. I’m not going to talk about how it felt to lose Jarvis, to go to a morgue and identify his body, how much I wanted to kill the man who took him from me, who shot him and left him to die like a dog in the street, with my bare hands, how much I wanted to crawl into the earth beside him. I’m not going to talk about Ty, how he reeled me in and peeled me apart because it made him happy, how he cajoled me into being weak and meek so he can grind him under his heel, how he beat me and said it was for my own good, how he raped me and called it love. Erik doesn’t deserve those parts of me, he doesn’t, he doesn’t, not anymore._

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Erik says, so satisfied, so content with what’s he’s fucking proven.

Pain flares to life, and Tony desperately tries to catch it, cage it behind his teeth before Erik can see how much he’s hurt him.

“After all these years, Erik, if that’s all you think of me, why the fuck are you still here? Why the fuck did you _marry_ me?” Tony demands, his stomach curdling.

“Maybe I wanted to keep a good lay hanging around,” Erik says, snidely. “Plus, if I divorce you, I get half your staff, right?”

The words slice swiftly, mercilessly, through his gut, the look on his face freezing abruptly.

“If you wanted a good lay, you’d have been better off with a fucking rent boy,” he says, roughly, his voice cutting like a knife. “That’s not what a husband’s for.”

“Nah,” Erik says, unkindly. “Rent boys aren’t hot for it the way you are.”

Tony grinds his teeth, the shame prickling hot on the back of his neck. “Go fuck yourself, you miserable, hateful bastard.”

“Go on, then,” Tony spits, fixing him with a lethal look. “Get the fuck out.”

Erik flashes him the edge of a smile, sharp and thin. “Gladly, pretty boy.”

All Tony sees is the back of him, and once the door shuts, he clutches at the table like he’s about to collapse.

* * *

Tony stumbles out of the caravan, his ears ringing, as the world flares up in fire all around him. He turns his head, sees Rhodey atop the second caravan, hands on a machine gun, as he fires into the grey, thick smoke in front of him.

“Rhodey!” he screams, heart leaping into his throat.

Rhodey turns his head, just fleetingly, and his eyes widen. “Take cover, Tony! Take cover!” he shouts back, voice thick with fear.

Tony shakes his head, scrabbling for a gun lying in the dirt. He picks it up and tries to fire. He kills one, then two, then three, of the bad guys, the terrorists, the combatants, whatever the fuck they want to be called; he doesn’t particularly care.

Then, of course, because it’s him, the gun fucking jams.

He curses, staring down at it, bemused, for a moment, before dropping it and running. He throws himself behind a large rock, cringing away from the mortar that explodes around him. He looks over his shoulder.

Rhodey is still fighting strong.

The insane urge to pull him away by the scruff of his neck, protect him, protect one of the few people in this world that loves him, rears its ugly head, and his hands shake atop his thighs.

Then, the bomb rolls into view.

 _Stark Industries_ , it says.

 _Fuck my life_ , he thinks, and then, he’s blown up.

When he wakes up, there’s an electromagnet in his chest that makes breathing difficult, and when he pulls on a wire, his vision goes white with agony.

The men that have him, the Ten Rings, they demand he make them weapons, a bomb to level the entire mountain range if they wish it so.

He says no, so they fist their hands in his hair and shove his head down into a dirty trough filled with equally filthy water. They beat him black and blue, when they’re done, when the waterboarding doesn’t yield the results they want, and dig knives into his belly, into his thighs and arms, leaving angry red webbing across his skin.

He’s a picture of their violence when they’re done, but he still says no when they demand a Jericho from him.

But he isn’t getting out of this cave, he isn’t getting back to Rhodey (if he’s even alive; he’s not so dumb that he didn’t realise that they were outmanned and ambushed in the desert), if he doesn’t do something more drastic.

He builds a suit of armour, made from the scraps of all his weapons the Ten Rings lay at his feet.

When the helm comes down over his eyes, he feels strong, _fierce_ , for the first time in years.

Yinsen dies.

Tony finds his bleeding, dying body draped over sacks on his way out of the cave. He holds his hands as he breathes his last, and his eyes are edged with tears, a loss of a very different friend (he doesn’t think he’ll ever have a friend like Yinsen ever again), a friend that looked at him and saw him and thought he could do better.

The rage burns in him, hot and fast, and he turns, ready for the next few terrorists to come stupidly lunging for him.

He emerges into the next corridor, and they’re all dead, littering the floor, bullets between their eyes.

“What the…?” he mutters.

“You just can’t stay out of trouble, can you, pretty boy?”

A shadow looms at the other side, and Erik removes his mask, draping his rifle over his shoulder.

Tony sees the razor line of his teeth as he grins, and his heart digs hard into his lungs.

“What-what are you doing here, Erik?” he says, breath twisting out of his lungs.

_Why are you here? Why, after all these years? Why did you leave me? You never came back, you just left me, why did you leave me?_

Erik steps forward. “I came for you,” he says, solidly.

Tony flinches, grinding down on his teeth.

“Rhodey contacted me. He told me about the ambush. I know this territory better than most.” Erik shrugs. “So, I came looking for you.”

_He didn’t come because he loves you. He came because it’s convenient. If he loved you, he would’ve come back sooner, not just when you might die. He doesn’t want you, he doesn’t love you. Maybe he never loved you._

Tony’s throat works. “Because of your special forces missions.”

Erik gives him a flat look. “You really wanna have this discussion right now?” he demands. He drags his eyes over Tony. “What are you wearin’, anyway?”

“None of your goddamn business,” he snaps, his hackles rising.

Erik smiles cat-like. “Did you miss me, baby?” he asks, his voice laced with honey.

“Fuck off,” Tony flings at him.

Erik rolls his eyes. “Guess you’re still a bitch, after all,” he muses.

_See, he never loved you, he never loved you, Tony._

“Something like that,” Tony says, coldly. He stalks past him. “Are they all dead?” he asks, his voice terse and strained.

“Yeah, honey, they’re gone,” Erik says, almost kindly. “They didn’t even see me comin’, the morons.” His mouth locks in a snarl. “And they got what they deserved.”

Tony rounds on him, the stench of death and blood and bodily functions all around them making his stomach roll. “Did they?” he says, furiously.

Erik’s jaw goes taut. “They took you, and they hurt you, didn’t they?” he demands. “So, yeah, they got what they deserved.”

“‘Cause you’re my fucking protector all of a sudden?” Tony lifts an eyebrow. “Erik, I haven’t seen you in _years_.”

Erik looks away. “We gettin’ out of here or what?” he asks, distantly.

“Yeah,” Tony says, dark and full of sadness.

Erik doesn’t linger for much longer afterwards. He leaves him there in the desert when he hears the helicopter blades whirring.

Tony pretends like it, being left behind one more time, doesn’t cut him like a knife.

* * *

It happens over and over again, Erik coming in at the last moment and saving him, helping him, fighting with him.

At the Stark Expo, a mysterious sniper beats back half of Vanko’s deformed robots.

In New York, a man in black, wearing a ceremonial mask, brawls with the Chitauri, before they can rain down their rage and greed upon the civilians too slow to take cover.

He doesn’t come to him when it’s over, when he knows that Tony had climbed into space with a nuke strapped to his back and came back dead and then half-dead.

That hurts.

He doesn’t show up in Miami (Tony thinks he thinks he’s dead; he doesn’t know if he’s offended that Erik thinks he’s killed so easily, even by a terrorist who lobs an entire arsenal at his poor mansion, now loitering at the bottom of the ocean; he doesn’t know if he aches because Erik isn’t coming for him this time, maybe he never really intended to).

He isn’t around in Sokovia, he isn’t around in Vienna, in Leipzig, in Berlin, in Siberia.

He isn’t around when Tony’s world flares up in fire, shaking his very earth, cutting his legs out from underneath him. He isn’t around when Steve Rogers, Tony’s friend, a man that he might have loved in another universe, beats him down with the shield his father gave the man until Tony’s lying in broken scraps of metal on a ground made of ice, waiting to die until he realises, _no one’s coming for me, I have to save myself, like I always do, I have to save myself or else I’ll die here, I’m not dying here._

Now, Tony knows, he knows he was content with pieces and crumbles of a man who’d never want him, not the way Tony wanted him back, not the way Tony wanted him to want him.

He’s always been very good at seeing love where there is none.

* * *

“Boss?”

“Yeah, FRI?” Tony asks, absentmindedly, poking the edge of his screwdriver into the wiring of his gauntlet.

“You have an incoming phone call,” FRIDAY explains.

“Oh, yeah? From who?”

“King T’Challa of Wakanda,” FRIDAY says, confused.

An odd, startled noise escapes him. “What the…” he shakes his head. “Okay, yeah, put him through.”

“Are you satisfied now, Stark?”

T’Challa grim, raging face bursts to life as a hologram in front of him.

_Oh, joy, more disdain._

“What are you…” Tony trails off. He fixes T’Challa with a cold look. “If this is about Rogers or any of those other morons, I’m not fucking interested.”

“No, this is not about them, _cousin,_ ” T’Challa says, thin and taut.

Tony’s brow knits. “Cousin? What the hell are you talking about?” he asks, confused.

“How long have you been playing this game?” T’Challa demands. “Did you orchestrate Lagos and Vienna? Did Zemo truly kill my father, or was he just some convenient scapegoat on whom you could place the blame? I imagine you were able to kill two birds with one stone, blaming Sergeant Barnes in the first instance. Did you already know that he killed your parents? It would’ve served you both well, to avenge your fathers at the same time. And you, Stark, you had the sheer gall to welcome as an ally in your war against Captain Rogers, to show empathy for my loss, to offer _comfort_ , when you and he likely killed my father together, when you and he have been biding your time before you can exact your vengeance upon us?”

“You know what, this is way too early for people to be hurling nonsensical accusations at me, and I’m not nearly drunk enough to have this conversation,” Tony says, sharply, chest throbbing at the mere mention of that damnable video. “Either start making sense, or I’m hanging up.”

“N’Jadaka,” T’Challa growls. “is my cousin.”

“Am I supposed to know who that is?” Tony asks, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“You may know him as Erik Stevens.”

Tony stills. His ears ring, and he curls his fingers around air. “What?” he breathes. “What are you talking about?”

T’Challa scoffs. “Enough with the lies, Stark. What is his plan?”

“Erik…” Tony licks his lips. “Erik is your _cousin_? That doesn’t make sense. He grew up in-in Oakland. I’ve been… I’ve been to the apartment where he grew up. His mother, she died when he was a kid, and his father, he said his father was-” Tony grows shock-cold, _his father was murdered by his brother_. “Your father…”

T’Challa’s face contorts with grief, and he sees it, then, the eyes, the lines around the mouth, _oh, he looks like Erik._

“Your father murdered Erik’s father,” Tony says, flatly.

T’Challa grits his teeth and looks away. “It was a little more complicated than that.”

“You didn’t come to me to _just_ accuse me of purposefully plotting war crimes and killing dozens of people – ruining my own life, mental health and peace of mind in the process, mind you – for my own benefit and apparently, the benefit of my runaway husband that I haven’t seen in _years_. Honestly, I probably should’ve divorced him at this point. So, why don’t you tell me what’s going on, and what Erik has to do with it?” Tony demands.

* * *

Four days later, he’s on a jet to Wakanda, at T’Challa’s invitation, as his husband is alive, but barely, after getting into a fucking war with his cousin for a throne of a country that Tony knows shit-all about in truth.

When the jet lands, he’s met with stern women in red armour, bearing spears that look like they could cut him open from balls to brain. They shoulder him as they walk to the palace.

T’Challa meets him in the throne room.

He doesn’t pretend to be pleasantly surprised by what Wakanda is, what he thought Wakanda was and isn’t.

He just wants to see Erik.

He’s lying there sick on the table, face pallid, looking like a corpse.

Princess Shuri introduces herself.

He offers her a half-hearted smile, having eyes only for his almost-dead husband.

“Is he, uh, is he going to live?” he asks, folding his arms over his chest.

Shuri nods. “He will.” She swells, satisfied (he remembers what it’s like to be young; he wishes he still was). “We can do many things here.”

“Much better than any hospital I’ve ever been to,” Tony agrees.

Shuri grins with all her teeth.

He already likes her.

He touches Erik’s shoulder, finds him cold.

“It might be a long time before he wakes,” Shuri cautions.

Tony shakes his head. “No, I can’t leave him. I can’t.”

Shuri inclines her head and leaves them be.

Tony exhales, folds his hands in his lap. “What the fuck do we do now, Erik?”


End file.
